Can a secular writer understand believers? A New York Times columnist has doubts

Comments

@Midwest Mom:"Is it also possible that as people of faith, we
"don't see [our own] shortcomings as [we] judge?"

Based
on my own personal experience it's highly probable.

sharronalayton, UT

Feb. 14, 2014 2:06 p.m.

RE: Tyler D, "The Great Awakening". It began at the same time as the
Enlightenment which emphasized logic and reason and stressed the power of the
individual to understand the universe based on scientific laws.

Jonathan Edwards (widely acknowledged to be America's most important and
original philosophical theologian) was a key American revivalist during the
Great Awakening who preached for close to ten years in New England.He
emphasized a personal approach to religion. He also bucked the puritan tradition
and called for unity amongst all Christians as opposed to intolerance.

His most famous sermon was "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”,
Not God in the hands of angry sinners.

His sermon evoked vivid,
terrifying images of the utter corruption of human nature and the terrors
awaiting the unrepentant in hell. Hence Edwards’s famous description of
the sinner as a loathsome spider suspended by a slender thread over a pit of
seething brimstone."

He explained that salvation was a direct
result from God and could not be attained by human works as the Puritans
preached.

Tyler DMeridian, ID

Feb. 14, 2014 11:16 a.m.

@sharrona – “Therefore I will take awesome vengeance on these
hypocrites, and make their wisest counselors as fools.”

Translation – either believe in the narrative about me (God) articulated
by Bronze/Iron Age shepherds or I (God) will take “awesome
vengeance” upon you.

And then religious people scratch their
heads and lament the decline of faith among modern people and tell themselves it
must be because people just want to be immoral… astounding!!

sharronalayton, UT

Feb. 14, 2014 10:54 a.m.

RE: How clearly do nonbelievers see believers?

1 Cor 2:14.. the
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are
foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned.

1Cor 1:18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that
perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. V19 For
it is written=*(Is 29:14 LXX), I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Paul quote is
from(Is 29:14 LXX)”* ), I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Or A Modern
Translation of A Marvelous Work and Wonder(BoM). (Is 29:14 LB “
Therefore I will take awesome vengeance on these hypocrites, and make their
wisest counselors as fools.

Tyler DMeridian, ID

Feb. 14, 2014 9:17 a.m.

The blog post is a very well-reasoned response to the New Yorker essay (which I
commented on in another article) and Douthat makes an articulate case against
the boxes the essay attempts to place believers and non-believers in.

I think the world (and the hearts & minds of its inhabitants) is generally
far more complex and nuanced than simply dichotomies (or trichotomies in this
case) suggest. For example, neither author explores all the implications of
eastern (e.g., Taoist) or pantheistic views, which under some conceptions saves
all the powers of divinity expressed in the old time religions while being fully
reconciled to science. Spinoza brilliantly expounds on this 400 years ago.

But both authors fail to recognize another possibility (one I think
lived by millions of believers) and that is the prevalence of people who simply
compartmentalize religion & science and ignore the cognitive dissonance
these two areas can generate when they bump up against each other.

There are apparently a lot of people who are fully satisfied with 99.9% of our
scientific explanations about the natural world yet still believe in the
super-natural.

DRayRoy, UT

Feb. 14, 2014 9:01 a.m.

AS a person of faith, I don't understand how even non-believers can look at
the history of this world and not admit that humble believers enjoy generally a
better world than those who rely solely on themselves. If there is a higher,
more intelligent Source of help for our lives and we are not accessing it, we
are not doing all we can to succeed. My witness is that their is.

patriotCedar Hills, UT

Feb. 13, 2014 5:04 p.m.

"the things of God are foolishness to men" New Testament

To
understand physics or medicine you have to make the time to learn and experiment
in the laboratory of science. How foolish is it for those who doubt the
spiritual side of humanity to have never spent a single moment investigating the
spiritual laboratory of faith.

Midwest MomSoldiers Grove, WI

Feb. 13, 2014 4:47 p.m.

Is it also possible that as people of faith, we "don't see [our own]
shortcomings as [we] judge?"

Liberal TedSalt Lake City, UT

Feb. 13, 2014 1:25 p.m.

I know too many secularist, who are of course very smart people. The trouble is
they don't see their short comings as they judge people of faith or
question people of faith sanity.

However, it's easier to take
the secular side and argue and defend it, than someone of faith whose
understanding and knowledge of the gospel is something you have to experience on
an individual level to understand. But, if a person refuses to believe in God
and to have a seed of faith to pray, it's difficult to prove your point to
such a person.

Ohio-LDSNE, OH

Feb. 13, 2014 12:57 p.m.

I generally appreciate Ross Douthat's columns. But if he has doubts as to
whether a secularist writer can understand a believer's mindset, he should
take the advice of famed religious leader Elder Uchtdorf and "doubt his
doubts."